


Countless, Ageless, Faceless, Nameless

by CraterNile



Category: Original Work
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Character Study, Culture, Existential Crisis, Homoeroticism, If You Squint - Freeform, Internal Conflict, Original Character(s), Original Fiction, Short One Shot, Writer's Block, Writers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-07
Updated: 2021-01-07
Packaged: 2021-03-17 16:08:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28602699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CraterNile/pseuds/CraterNile
Summary: An aging writer is struggling to make his next big cultural phenomena. His friend comes in and talks with him. Does the writer understand culture? Does anybody?





	Countless, Ageless, Faceless, Nameless

Herbert Ollivander looked at his computer with dread. The clock on the wall ticked away as the shadows from the windows in his office danced across the bookshelves. Not that Herbert, or as his mother affectionately called him, Herby, really noticed. No, he was sitting tunnel visioned at the box of death, defeated.

Herbert was a writer, and he thought himself a pretty good one too. At least, in the 80s he was. That was when he hit it big in the mainstream. His books of wonder and mystery enraptured a generation, cementing his position as a timeless artist. That's what the papers said. Who was he to disagree.

Now, it was later. Much later. While you could still find an Ollivander classic in the bowels of your local Barnes and Nobles, they weren't exactly flying off the shelves. It wasn’t that Herbert lost his charm, wit, and masterful storytelling. It was that the market had changed. The enraptured generation grew up, and their kids took hold of popular culture.

The new craze was postmodernism, whatever that was. It truly was an enigma to Herbert, how a whole generation, and now another it seemed, could enjoy such structureless swill. How millions of people could look at a so-called art piece and find some kind of meaning was beyond him. The market had changed, not him.

Today was the deadline for Herbert. It’s what was on his calendar after all. The deadline for his new piece of fantasy comedy that was supposed to thrust him back into the spotlight, and cement him as a truly timeless artist. The only problem was that he couldn’t figure it out. He had watched countless youtube videos of people trying to make sense of a new culture built on a foundation of nothing. He had tried his best to understand the new crazes of the day, but it just wasn’t getting through to him. He wasn’t built to make it this long. He had his time, and now it was done. 

A knock at the door interrupted his pity party. “You get anything done there Herbert?” said his friend Floyd, while looking at him pityingly. 

“Can’t say that I have, Floyd,” replied Herbert, not looking away from his computer. The funny thing about Floyd Sanders was that he didn’t seem to have a grasp on any culture, new or old. Herbert hadn’t asked him how old he was, and he couldn’t venture to guess. It was as though Floyd had waltzed through life in his head, stubbornly positioned in that land of dreams.

“Well Herbert, it's hard to see you like this, I can tell you that,” Floyd said as he took a seat at the other side of Herbert’s desk. “I wish I knew how to help you Herbert, but I can’t say that I do.”

“Don’t lose sleep on it, Floyd. I’m an old man, looking for meaning in a world that has forsaken it.” Herbert looked at the clock on the wall. Twenty minutes until his pitch meeting. Twenty minutes until the details of his big comeback were to be revealed to the board. He didn’t quite know what the board was. As much as Herbert wanted this to go well, it just didn’t seem to be working in his favor. Life, huh.

“I don’t think that’s entirely true, Herbert.”

“Tell me why Floyd.”

“Well Herbert, I have to take issue with the meaning part of your last statement. The world has not suddenly become meaningless, Herbert. It seems to me that there is more meaning today than there has been in a long time,” Floyd said, while looking at Herbert squarely in the eyes. Floyd was always looking for eye contact. He almost never got it. 

“Well I’d love for you to tell me where it is Floyd, because I just can’t seem to see it in all the newspapers these days. The televisions and movie theatres are filled with instance upon instance of nothing being presented as the greatest thing people have ever seen.” Herbert truly believed what he was saying. He had seen it with his own eyes. “I guess I’m just the angry old man yelling at clouds, aren’t I Floyd.”

Floyd chuckled a bit at this, but continued. “Herbert, while I would love to be able in good conscience to tell you that was the truth, I simply cannot. What I think is happening with you, is that you have lost base.”

“Whatever would you mean by that Floyd?” Herbert asked, finally meeting the searing eye contact that he had been dodging for the past couple of minutes. 

“Well, Herbert, when you wrote your big hits, you had confident ground, and you knew exactly where you were headed. You had an ear to the ground, and your head in the clouds. That's why everyone loved you. But now, you have your head in the clouds and your ears up your ass,” Floyd replied, not being able to hide a little smile that danced on his lips. 

Herbert was taken aback by his friend's harsh verdict, but decided not to reply. Instead, he looked at his blank computer screen and sighed. The two sat in a slightly charged silence for a bit, while the clock on the wall acted like a sentry, reminding Herbert of his doom.

In all fairness, Floyd was onto something. It wasn’t like Herbert was the most hip kid in the neighborhood. Even when he had released the books that dragged him up from middle class to upper middle class, he wasn’t exactly in tune with everything going on around him. The head in the clouds often distracted from his ear on the ground, but somehow he had still been able to appeal to the younger generations.

Or had he. Had he given a voice to a generation he wasn’t even part of, or had he given them something to calm their minds while they developed their own way of thinking. Had he acted as the cultural lightning rod that he was acclaimed for by people of his generation, or had he acted as the oasis in the middle of the desert, a stopping point for thirsty travellers on their way to greatness.

This made Herbert chuckle. He wasn’t a fraud, he was sure of that. The question that is raised, then, is what exactly was he. He wasn’t the new messiah, he wasn’t the snake oil salesman. He wasn’t a leader, but he wasn’t a traitor.

“Well, I should be going Herbert. But I hope you think about what I said. You still got it in you. Just find it,” Floyd said as he gave a wink to Herbert and left him alone in the office.

Herbert didn’t know what to do. He hardly had a grasp on who, or really what, he used to be. How could he make a comeback in this world of vague interpretation when he didn’t know what he was doing?

Or was that really a bad thing. Was it bad that Herbert had no label for himself and the impact he had. Wasn’t that what the culture really was now? Just a bunch of people trying and succeeding to find meaning in the dark while keeping themselves detached from what others thought of them. Scared kids in a scarier world trying to grasp onto anything that they could while it all disappeared and crumbled around them. 

Herbert knew something about the world crumbling around him if his recent endeavors had made any sort of impact on him. Why was he trying to figure out what the culture was, if the kids now didn’t even know. He could easily, and more importantly, meaningfully become a part of the artists, countless, ageless, faceless artists groping around in the void.

He didn’t know quite what he would find, but he would certainly know when he found it.

Would he be playing a character trying to blend in? Aren’t we all?


End file.
